Issue 41 Spring web - Flipbook - Page 27
The conservation principles devised for the restoration
project were:
Cathedral, and is the warm centre of the building used
for prayer and devotion through the day. Most of the
60,000 prayer candles burned annually in the Cathedral
are lit at the Alban shrine.
• To conserve all the original 14th century stone and
complete the shrine with new material;
To bring the Amphibalus shrine base back into the daily
liturgical life of the Cathedral, it was dismantled,
conserved and reconstructed in the Chapel of the Four
Tapers, re-presented as a devotional object and work of
art, and crucially, its fundamental relationship with the
shrine of St Alban was reestablished.
• New parts to be legible as such, and serve to help
preserve and enhance both the stone fragments and the
authentic devotional experience of the shrine;
• The restoration to be founded in existing evidence on
the surviving fragments of the shrine base itself, and where
this is missing, reference made to St Alban’s shrine reconstruction and comparative evidence in other medieval
shrine bases and other contemporary carved work.
In its new location the shrine was aligned East-West,
centred on the east window of the chapel and its entrance
gate. It is free-standing, without an altar, and it is now
possible to walk all sides to appreciate the exception quality of both the original carving and new careful repairs.
The shrine is flanked by four standing candles (recalling
the Four Tapers) by Luke Hughes, and topped with a
canopy of blue silk made by the Royal School of Needlework. There is no first-order relic of Amphibalus to be
placed under the canopy, but a relic of the legendary cloak
which Alban gave to Amphibalus, allowing him to escape
the persecution of the Romans, is displayed on the east
panel of the canopy above the shrine base.
There were many instances where careful judgement was
required to inform different aspects of the reconstruction
project, including:
• Design of missing elements for which no evidence
survived, including the plinth, step and column bases and
the east chest panel design
• Conservation of existing stones and the extent of
restoration of lost details;
• Choice of materials for reconstruction;
• Representation in the Chapel of the Four Tapers as a
place of devotion.
For Cathedral Architect, Kelley Christ, Director of
A&RMÉ Architects and consultant Archaeologist Dr
Jackie Hall (now the Cathedral Archaeologist) it was an
extraordinarily wonderful opportunity to forensically
examine one of the last of the late medieval shrines in
England, which followed on from previous invaluable
studies by Professor Martin Biddle, Dr Richard Morris and
Dr Linda Monkton. Despite the violence it suffered at the
hands of iconoclasts, a surprising amount of original
carved detail and even polychrome decoration survived,
particularly at the east end of the shrine base. This
provided invaluable information to guide the careful
reconstruction, initially on paper (CAD) then for real.
To communicate the design intent and technical
requirements for this 3-dimensional jigsaw, it was essential
to develop a clear set of detailed drawings. The Downland
Partnership prepared orthophotographs which were
essential for the preparation of CAD working drawings
for the reconstruction. As can be seen from the images
below, they allowed the first accurate images of how the
surviving medieval masonry fragments may be imagined
as part of the complete shrine base, restoring a sense of
the original 14th century design.
Above, Elevational drawings prepared by Ruben Davila Garralaga of A&RMÉ Architects utilising orthophotographs to describe the extent
of surviving medieval masonry and the extent of new stone or mortar repairs which were required as part of the reconstruction.
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